(This article is an original manuscript of Zijin Finance, please indicate the source for reprinting)
Recently, Pinduoduo platform merchants were made a fuss by the "bombed store" incident, which caused continuous attention from the outside world.
The so-called "bombing of stores" refers to the premeditated behavior of launching centralized orders and then centralized withdrawal of orders for online stores, violently suppressing and disrupting normal business order. It is understood that the "fried store" originally occurred on March 23, and Pinduoduo's self-operated store "Duoduo Welfare Society" launched a new product, and subsequently, many people poured into the store to maliciously place orders, apply for "refund only" after placing an order, and deliberately speak ill of customer service. This led to the "Duoduo Welfare Society" hastily removing shelves and closing stores 4 hours after the new product was launched.
However, these malicious orders remained angry, and on March 28, dozens of brand stores on Pinduoduo were also similarly "attacked", they communicated information through short video platforms and social platforms, took the lead in placing malicious orders on foreign brand flagship stores on the platform, and then flashed back bad reviews and insulted customer service staff, which is no different from "smashing" stores.
Subsequently, many brands such as domestic home appliances, beauty and dairy products have suffered indiscriminate impacts. According to analysis, Pinduoduo's brand flagship stores and tens of billions of subsidized merchants have become the main targets of the attack, and some brand stores have been forced to temporarily close down to avoid losses.
According to public information, most of the participants are small and medium-sized businesses. "Some merchants who are dissatisfied with the punishment mechanism of Pinduoduo and believe that the platform overprotects consumers and harms the interests of merchants, have established merchant alliances on multiple platforms."
The "penalty mechanism" they call mainly refers to the "refund only" function within the Pinduoduo platform. At present, there are two main types of refund guarantees for consumers after shopping from the Pinduoduo platform: one is "return and refund", and the other is "refund only". The former is generally not controversial, as the law stipulates that online purchases can be refunded for seven days without reason.
"Refund only" is different, choosing this option means that the consumer does not need to return the goods to get a refund, in other words, the merchant gave the goods for nothing. Consumers are very satisfied with the "refund only" model, and the user experience has been greatly improved, but some small and medium-sized businesses must not like this after-sales service model, thus initiating the smashing of Pinduoduo brand stores.
In this regard, Pinduoduo Xiaoer Circle of Friends pointed out that "only refund" is only a clumsy excuse used to cover up the true intentions of the "bombing shop" forces.
In the face of the increasingly fierce situation, we have to take the lead in stating that the market economy is an economy ruled by law and an orderly economy, and without the rule of law and order, violent acts are used to denounce the so-called "unfairness", which in itself is a farce that lacks rationality.
At the same time, we can't help but ask, as the fuse of the incident, Pinduoduo's "refund only" function, as well as many brand merchants and self-operated stores that have encountered a large number of malicious orders, have existed for a long time, and they have been in normal operation, and they have suffered unwarranted losses under the rule of law, and such losses are suffocating. Whether someone behind this turmoil and disrupt the normal market order is still undecided.
Let the bullets fly a little longer!
"Refund only" has boundaries, and Pinduoduo has already iterated many times
As mentioned in the introduction, the outside world generally believes that Pinduoduo's "refund only" function was the trigger for the "fried shop" incident.
But in fact, Pinduoduo's "refund only" function has relatively clear evaluation criteria and rules. Pinduoduo believes that if there are problems such as non-correct goods, unqualified quality, malicious fraud, etc. for the ordered goods, the platform will make a comprehensive judgment from multiple dimensions such as product value, product characteristics, information description, after-sales complaints, as well as consumers' shopping habits and consumer credit, and support consumers' "refund only" appeal as appropriate.
From the perspective of the "refund only" process, when the user initiates the "refund only", relevant vouchers will be uploaded as supporting evidence; In addition, the merchant has the right to refuse the user's request, and in the event that the two parties cannot reach an agreement, the platform will also intervene to deal with the "refund only" event.
In short, the user has the right to initiate a "refund only", and the merchant also has the opportunity to refuse the user's claim, which is designed to regulate merchants who do not abide by the integrity of business, not a protection mechanism that favors consumers for no reason.
If consumers have malicious purchases, malicious returns, etc., the platform will also record the consumer's in-platform consumer credit evaluation accordingly, reducing the frequency of providing similar service guarantee upgrade measures. Therefore, from the perspective of the overall process, the purpose of the "refund only" function is to standardize the integrity and orderly operation of merchants, improve user experience, and establish a shopping environment where "low price does not equal low quality".
As the first platform to propose the "refund only" function, Pinduoduo has been weighing the gains and losses of both ends of the spectrum and striving to promote the fairest deal. In the past three years since the launch of this function, "refund only" has not only been clearly defined, but also optimized and iterated many times, helping consumers effectively avoid problems such as wrong goods and malicious fraud, greatly improving the shopping experience, and reducing the difficulty and cost of consumers in dealing with after-sales.
After Pinduoduo's continuous exploration, the "refund only" function has become one of the most popular services on the platform.
From the perspective of the scene, when consumers buy non-standard products such as fresh food, they often face receiving rotten food, and the cost of return is too high and the time is long, resulting in no way to return. The emergence of the "refund only" function has greatly improved the user experience, and the stickiness and frequency of people's shopping have increased significantly. At the same time, this function invisibly restricts merchants who like to "fish in troubled waters" and creates a more standardized and efficient platform ecology.
Safeguarding the rights and interests of consumers cannot be a reason for "bombing shops"
Whether it is the background of the birth of the "refund only" function or the efforts of Pinduoduo's multiple iterations, it has always revolved around a logic, that is, to protect the interests of consumers in an all-round way, which is also the core element of the sustainable development of any platform.
Today, the platform side can not bypass the three pillars of "people and goods", and users will always be an important driving force for the long-term development of the platform.
Zijin Finance uses three "enough" to express its logic: the scale of users is large enough to support the development of the platform and provide a steady stream of customers for merchants; The frequency of user repurchase is high enough to increase the activity of the platform and also accumulate fan groups for merchants; The user's shopping experience is good enough to establish a positive image, word of mouth, and merchants will also complete low-cost secondary customer acquisition from fan fission.
This logic is clear enough, only by doing a good user shopping experience can the platform and merchants continue to benefit from it.
From the perspective of the entire industry, various platforms have introduced various measures to restrict merchants around the improvement of user experience. For example, in previous years, the pre-sale trend of e-commerce platforms has intensified, and some merchants have delivery times as long as one month, and it often happens that consumers only receive clothes purchased in midsummer in early autumn. In order to regulate this phenomenon, some e-commerce platforms have improved the "rush delivery" service, from reminding the store owner to ship the goods to the store owner who fails to handle the delivery request in time, which will be punished and fined by the platform side.
On the surface, "urging delivery" is also tilted towards the rights and interests of consumers, but behind the tilt? It is forcing merchants to improve performance capacity and efficiency, optimize internal business processes, and improve user experience. The essence of the constraint on merchants is also the process of "good money driving out bad money", urging merchants to develop in the direction of standardized operation.
Looking at the entire industry, whether it is the overseas giant Amazon or several domestic mainstay platforms, it has long reached a consensus to safeguard the interests of consumers, and each platform has an exclusive consumer rights protection system to achieve a governance chain of prior access, prevention and control, and post-event protection.
There may also be consumers who remember the early appearance of e-commerce platforms, and at first consumers resisted using e-commerce platforms due to distrust or poor shopping experience, which was one of the reasons why the development of early e-commerce platforms was blocked. Nowadays, online shopping has become the preferred scenario of consumer users, in this process of evolution, we can see that consumers' dependence on online shopping platforms is gradually increasing, but where we can't see, it is the efforts of platforms to standardize business operations and rectify the online shopping atmosphere.
Unlike the early era of barbaric growth, e-commerce platforms are now competing for the stock market. Only by digging deeper into user needs can we find increments in the stock market, which is one of the main reasons for Pinduoduo's contrarian growth.
Only by understanding users better can we lay a good foundation. Long slopes and thick snow will go further.
Dig deeper: Is there a black hand behind the scenes?
After analyzing the "refund only" function from an objective point of view, it is not difficult to find that the platform is not for the purpose of "cheating" merchants, which is far from enough to be labeled wrong. Whose platform is cared for, whose environment is mindful, this is the proper meaning of platform operation.
It is worth noting that after presenting the event in full detail, new questions arise.
First of all, the "refund only" function, as the fuse of "fried shop", is hardly a reasonable reason in itself. "Refund only" is a new feature launched by Pinduoduo in early 2021, why is it on the cusp today three years later? If it is simply that some merchants are dissatisfied with the platform's approach, why wait until three years later to intensify the contradiction and release it centrally?
We believe that Pinduoduo, as a platform party, can gather tens of millions of merchants in just a few years, and the communication and feedback mechanism will not be less. Of course, small and medium-sized businesses have the right to express their emotions, but there are many solutions, which have evolved into today's large-scale organized "bombing shop" attacks, which is obviously not the most rational one, nor does it conform to the principle of rule of law.
Secondly, the content of the open letter, which is widely circulated on the Internet, is also worth noting. "Let the brand store withdraw from Pinduoduo and return to a certain platform". From such a statement, we have to wonder whether there is a black hand behind it, and whether such an attack is organized. If only small and medium-sized businesses want to protect their own interests, they can choose to target the platform instead of letting the platform's merchants withdraw from the platform.
On the whole, the existence of the brand side on any platform is conducive to deepening the platform effect and reaching more user groups. Brand merchants and small and medium-sized businesses themselves are mutually beneficial relationships, and when users are attracted to the platform to shop, it also creates transaction opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses.
Third, the "fried shop" incident has made a lot of noise, and some consumers said that they have also been indiscriminately abused and attacked by the "fried shop" forces on the Internet. Disrupting the normal operation of brands and self-operated parties, and destroying the overall shopping atmosphere of the platform, small and medium-sized businesses are both attackers and victims.
Small and medium-sized businesses who are deeply engaged in the online shopping scene will not understand the logic of this? If small and medium-sized businesses can't benefit, who will benefit?
summary
The bizarre logic of "instead of reflecting on yourself, blame others" in the new literature of the Internet has been vividly displayed in the "Fried Shop" incident.
If emotions are thrown away, in the business world, from offline commercial complexes to online platforms, each platform party that builds a venue to provide transactions for consumers and merchants is following the same logic, that is, unswervingly protecting the rights and interests of consumers, and the better they are protected, the more opportunities will there be in the future, because "altruism is self-interest, altruism is self-interest".
As bystanders, we are also consumers, and the more we are boiling, the more we must think calmly, penetrate the surface impetuosity of the phenomenon, and see the essence of the things behind it.